Three Lives · Melanctha (10/17)

And so one evening, late, he was to go to her. He waited a little long, before he went to her. He was afraid, in himself, tonight, he would surely hurt her. He never wanted to go when he might quarrel with her.

Melanctha sat there looking very angry, when he came in to her. Jeff took off his hat and coat and then sat down by the fire with her.

“If you come in much later to me just now, Jeff Campbell, I certainly never would have seen you no more never to speak to you, ’thout your apologising real humble to me.” “Apologising Melanctha,” and Jeff laughed and was scornful to her, “Apologising, Melanctha, I ain’t proud that kind of way, Melanctha, I don’t mind apologising to you, Melanctha, all I mind, Melanctha is to be doing of things wrong, to you.” “That’s easy, to say things that way, Jeff to me. But you never was very proud Jeff, to be courageous to me.” “I don’t know about that Melanctha. I got courage to say some things hard, when I mean them, to you.” “Oh, yes, Jeff, I know all about that, Jeff, to me. But I mean real courage, to run around and not care nothing about what happens, and always to be game in any kind of trouble. That’s what I mean by real courage, to me, Jeff, if you want to know it.” “Oh, yes, Melanctha, I know all that kind of courage. I see plenty of it all the time with some kinds of colored men and with some girls like you Melanctha, and Jane Harden. I know all about how you are always making a fuss to be proud because you don’t holler so much when you run in to where you ain’t got any business to be, and so you get hurt, the way you ought to. And then, you kind of people are very brave then, sure, with all your kinds of suffering, but the way I see it, going round with all my patients, that kind of courage makes all kind of trouble, for them who ain’t so noble with their courage, and then they got it, always to be bearing it, when the end comes, to be hurt the hardest. It’s like running around and being game to spend all your money always, and then a man’s wife and children are the ones do all the starving and they don’t ever get a name for being brave, and they don’t ever want to be doing all that suffering, and they got to stand it and say nothing. That’s the way I see it a good deal now with all that kind of braveness in some of the colored people. They always make a lot of noise to show they are so brave not to holler, when they got so much suffering they always bring all on themselves, just by doing things they got no business to be doing. I don’t say, never, Melanctha, they ain’t got good courage not to holler, but I never did see much in looking for that kind of trouble just to show you ain’t going to holler. No its all right being brave every day, just living regular and not having new ways all the time just to get excitements, the way I hate to see it in all the colored people. No I don’t see much, Melanctha, in being brave just to get it good, where you’ve got no business. I ain’t ashamed Melanctha, right here to tell you, I ain’t ashamed ever to say I ain’t got no longing to be brave, just to go around and look for trouble.” “Yes that’s just like you always, Jeff, you never understand things right, the way you are always feeling in you. You ain’t got no way to understand right, how it depends what way somebody goes to look for new things, the way it makes it right for them to get excited.”

“No Melanctha, I certainly never do say I understand much anybody’s got a right to think they won’t have real bad trouble, if they go and look hard where they are certain sure to find it. No Melanctha, it certainly does sound very pretty all this talking about danger and being game and never hollering, and all that way of talking, but when two men are just fighting, the strong man mostly gets on top with doing good hard pounding, and the man that’s getting all that pounding, he mostly never likes it so far as I have been able yet to see it, and I don’t see much difference what kind of noble way they are made of when they ain’t got any kind of business to get together there to be fighting. That certainly is the only way I ever see it happen right, Melanctha, whenever I happen to be anywhere I can be looking.”

“That’s because you never can see anything that ain’t just so simple, Jeff, with everybody, the way you always think it. It do make all the difference the kind of way anybody is made to do things game Jeff Campbell.”

“Maybe Melanctha, I certainly never say no you ain’t right, Melanctha. I just been telling it to you all straight, Melanctha, the way I always see it. Perhaps if you run around where you ain’t got any business, and you stand up very straight and say, I am so brave, nothing can ever ever hurt me, maybe nothing will ever hurt you then Melanctha. I never have seen it do so. I never can say truly any differently to you Melanctha, but I always am ready to be learning from you, Melanctha. And perhaps when somebody cuts into you real hard, with a brick he is throwing, perhaps you never will do any hollering then, Melanctha. I certainly don’t ever say no, Melanctha, to you, I only say that ain’t the way yet I ever see it happen when I had a chance to be there looking.”

They sat there together, quiet by the fire, and they did not seem to feel very loving.

“I certainly do wonder,” Melanctha said dreamily, at last breaking into their long unloving silence. “I certainly do wonder why always it happens to me I care for anybody who ain’t no ways good enough for me ever to be thinking to respect him.”

Jeff looked at Melanctha. Jeff got up then and walked a little up and down the room, and then he came back, and his face was set and dark and he was very quiet to her.

“Oh dear, Jeff, sure, why you look so solemn now to me. Sure Jeff I never am meaning anything real by what I just been saying. What was I just been saying Jeff to you. I only certainly was just thinking how everything always was just happening to me.”

Jeff Campbell sat very still and dark, and made no answer.

“Seems to me, Jeff you might be good to me a little tonight when my head hurts so, and I am so tired with all the hard work I have been doing, thinking, and I always got so many things to be a trouble to me, living like I do with nobody ever who can help me. Seems to me you might be good to me Jeff tonight, and not get angry, every little thing I am ever saying to you.”

“I certainly would not get angry ever with you, Melanctha, just because you say things to me. But now I certainly been thinking you really mean what you have been just then saying to me.” “But you say all the time to me Jeff, you ain’t no ways good enough in your loving to me, you certainly say to me all the time you ain’t no ways good or understanding to me.” “That certainly is what I say to you always, just the way I feel it to you Melanctha always, and I got it right in me to say it, and I have got a right in me to be very strong and feel it, and to be always sure to believe it, but it ain’t right for you Melanctha to feel it. When you feel it so Melanctha, it does certainly make everything all wrong with our loving. It makes it so I certainly never can bear to have it.”

They sat there then a long time by the fire, very silent, and not loving, and never looking to each other for it. Melanctha was moving and twitching herself and very nervous with it. Jeff was heavy and sullen and dark and very serious in it.

“Oh why can’t you forget I said it to you Jeff now, and I certainly am so tired, and my head and all now with it.”

Jeff stirred, “All right Melanctha, don’t you go make yourself sick now in your head, feeling so bad with it,” and Jeff made himself do it, and he was a patient doctor again now with Melanctha when he felt her really having her head hurt with it. “It’s all right now Melanctha darling, sure it is now I tell you. You just lie down now a little, dear one, and I sit here by the fire and just read awhile and just watch with you so I will be here ready, if you need me to give you something to help you resting.” And then Jeff was a good doctor to her, and very sweet and tender with her, and Melanctha loved him to be there to help her, and then Melanctha fell asleep a little, and Jeff waited there beside her until he saw she was really sleeping, and then he went back and sat down by the fire.

And Jeff tried to begin again with his thinking, and he could not make it come clear to himself, with all his thinking, and he felt everything all thick and heavy and bad, now inside him, everything that he could not understand right, with all the hard work he made, with his thinking. And then he moved himself a little, and took a book to forget his thinking, and then as always, he loved it when he was reading, and then very soon he was deep in his reading, and so he forgot now for a little while that he never could seem to be very understanding.

And so Jeff forgot himself for awhile in his reading, and Melanctha was sleeping. And then Melanctha woke up and she was screaming. “Oh, Jeff, I thought you gone away for always from me. Oh, Jeff, never now go away no more from me. Oh, Jeff, sure, sure, always be just so good to me.”

There was a weight in Jeff Campbell from now on, always with him, that he could never lift out from him, to feel easy. He always was trying not to have it in him and he always was trying not to let Melanctha feel it, with him, but it was always there inside him. Now Jeff Campbell always was serious, and dark, and heavy, and sullen, and he would often sit a long time with Melanctha without moving.

“You certainly never have forgiven to me, what I said to you that night, Jeff, now have you?” Melanctha asked him after a long silence, late one evening with him. “It ain’t ever with me a question like forgiving, Melanctha, I got in me. It’s just only what you are feeling for me, makes any difference to me. I ain’t ever seen anything since in you, makes me think you didn’t mean it right, what you said about not thinking now any more I was good, to make it right for you to be really caring so very much to love me.”

“I certainly never did see no man like you, Jeff. You always wanting to have it all clear out in words always, what everybody is always feeling. I certainly don’t see a reason, why I should always be explaining to you what I mean by what I am just saying. And you ain’t got no feeling ever for me, to ask me what I meant, by what I was saying when I was so tired, that night. I never know anything right I was saying.” “But you don’t ever tell me now, Melanctha, so I really hear you say it, you don’t mean it the same way, the way you said it to me.” “Oh Jeff, you so stupid always to me and always just bothering with your always asking to me. And I don’t never anyway remember ever anything I been saying to you, and I am always my head, so it hurts me it half kills me, and my heart jumps so, sometimes I think I die so when it hurts me, and I am so blue always, I think sometimes I take something to just kill me, and I got so much to bother thinking always and doing, and I got so much to worry, and all that, and then you come and ask me what I mean by what I was just saying to you. I certainly don’t know, Jeff, when you ask me. Seems to me, Jeff, sometimes you might have some kind of a right feeling to be careful to me.” “You ain’t got no right Melanctha Herbert,” flashed out Jeff through his dark, frowning anger, “you certainly ain’t got no right always to be using your being hurt and being sick, and having pain, like a weapon, so as to make me do things it ain’t never right for me to be doing for you. You certainly ain’t got no right to be always holding your pain out to show me.” “What do you mean by them words, Jeff Campbell.” “I certainly do mean them just like I am saying them, Melanctha. You act always, like I been responsible all myself for all our loving one another. And if its anything anyway that ever hurts you, you act like as if it was me made you just begin it all with me. I ain’t no coward, you hear me, Melanctha? I never put my trouble back on anybody, thinking that they made me. I certainly am right ready always, Melanctha, you certainly had ought to know me, to stand all my own trouble for me, but I tell you straight now, the way I think it Melanctha, I ain’t going to be as if I was the reason why you wanted to be loving, and to be suffering so now with me.” “But ain’t you certainly ought to be feeling it so, to be right, Jeff Campbell. Did I ever do anything but just let you do everything you wanted to me. Did I ever try to make you be loving to me. Did I ever do nothing except just sit there ready to endure your loving with me. But I certainly never, Jeff Campbell, did make any kind of way as if I wanted really to be having you for me.”

Jeff stared at Melanctha. “So that’s the way you say it when you are thinking right about it all, Melanctha. Well I certainly ain’t got a word to say ever to you any more, Melanctha, if that’s the way its straight out to you now, Melanctha.” And Jeff almost laughed out to her, and he turned to take his hat and coat, and go away now forever from her.

Melanctha dropped her head on her arms, and she trembled all over and inside her. Jeff stopped a little and looked very sadly at her. Jeff could not so quickly make it right for himself, to leave her.

“Oh, I certainly shall go crazy now, I certainly know that,” Melanctha moaned as she sat there, all fallen and miserable and weak together.

Jeff came and took her in his arms, and held her. Jeff was very good then to her, but they neither of them felt inside all right, as they once did, to be together.

From now on, Jeff had real torment in him.

Was it true what Melanctha had said that night to him? Was it true that he was the one had made all this trouble for them? Was it true, he was the only one, who always had had wrong ways in him? Waking or sleeping Jeff now always had this torment going on inside him.

Jeff did not know now any more, what to feel within him. He did not know how to begin thinking out this trouble that must always now be bad inside him. He just felt a confused struggle and resentment always in him, a knowing, no, Melanctha was not right in what she had said that night to him, and then a feeling, perhaps he always had been wrong in the way he never could be understanding. And then would come strong to him, a sense of the deep sweetness in Melanctha’s loving and a hating the cold slow way he always had to feel things in him.

Always Jeff knew, sure, Melanctha was wrong in what she had said that night to him, but always Melanctha had had deep feeling with him, always he was poor and slow in the only way he knew how to have any feeling. Jeff knew Melanctha was wrong, and yet he always had a deep doubt in him. What could he know, who had such slow feeling in him? What could he ever know, who always had to find his way with just thinking. What could he know, who had to be taught such a long time to learn about what was really loving? Jeff now always had this torment in him.

Melanctha was now always making him feel her way, strong whenever she was with him. Did she go on to do it just to show him, did she do it so now because she was no longer loving, did she do it so because that was her way to make him be really loving. Jeff never did know how it was that it all happened so to him.